Moving files from Dropbox to an external HDD without going through laptop drive.

NigelClearway

Device
HP Laptop 15 S
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
Win 11 home
Dropbox App Version/Browser Version
Chrome

Question or Issue
I have a laptop with a SSD.  477 GB storage, 467 GB used.

My Dropbox has files on it I want to save on external drives and remove as I no longer need access to them.  I just want them archived and gone away.  These files total ~40 GB.

Explorer shows these files having total size of ~40 GB, but only occupying less than 200 MB on the actual disk.  I have Dropbox Sync set to Online-only.  

I have a couple of external HDDs each with ~1TB free.

How do I move them from Dropbox to the external HDD without them having to land on the laptop, given that there is only 10 GB free on the SSD on the laptop?

Megan

Hey there, @NigelClearway welcome to our Community! 

The best way to go about this is by following the steps below. 

Since some of your files are saved inside your Dropbox folder as "online-only", then you'd need to change them to "available offline" first, and then copy or move them to your external hard drive.

Why is that? Because "online-only" files aren't actually downloaded inside your Dropbox folder. What you see there are the placeholders of these files that take up approximately 0kb (on-disk size). However this is the physical size. When you make them 'available offline', then you will see their actual size on your device.

With that being said, I'd suggest that you proceed to download and move the files in smaller batches. Make 'available offline' some of your 'online-only' and then copy or move them to your external hard drive. Once you make sure the process is successful, you can then remove them from your Dropbox folder.

I understand that this process might be a bit slow due to the SSD's lack of space, but it's the wisest way to proceed.

If you need something else, please let me know and I will be more than happy to help every step of the way.